Underrated Languages: 5 Reasons to Learn Turkish

Underrated Languages: 5 Reasons To Learn Turkish

Summary: There are many great reasons to learn Turkish: First, it’s a completely own language family that is not related to any Indo-European or Semitic language. Therefore, learning Turkish is like solving a puzzle, making it a great training for your brain. It’s also a great language if you’re into watching series, as the Turkish TV industry has been on the rise for quite some time now. Turkish is a very useful language because not many Turks speak English and due to its presence in Germany and in the Balkans.

Which language did you want to learn when you were younger?

When I was at school, I was thrilled about French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese or Portuguese. But never in a thousand years had I thought that I’d ever learn Serbian or Turkish.

And I think there’s a reason for it.

A couple of years ago, I read the book “Speaking and Being” by Kübra Gümüşay. There were some passages about bilingualism and language learning that really stayed with me:

If you think about bilingualism, which languages come to your mind? German and French? German and Chinese? Probably languages that look good in your curriculum, in the world of economy, in business life. Languages with a privilege.

Did you also think about German and Turkish?

When the British press discovered that Princess Charlotte spoke Spanish with her nanny, the Mirror wrote: “Princess Charlotte can already speak two languages – at age TWO.”

Many Brits who were also raised bilingually, but not with Spanish or French in addition to English, but with Urdu, Hindi or Polish, asked themselves if the newspaper would be equally excited about their talent.

Unfortunately, in Germany, the dominant conception is still this: You don’t learn languages like Turkish. You unlearn them.

Well, I’m here to proof you wrong! After I’ve written an article about why I think Serbian is the most underrated European language, which you can access here, I’d now like to talk about 5 great reasons why learning Turkish was one of the best decisions I’ve made in language learning! Let’s dive in!

1. Do Something Completely Different

Turkish is neither related to Indo-European languages such as English, French or Russian, nor to Semitic languages like Arabic. Instead, it’s part of the so-called Turkic languages, which include Turkish, Azeri, some Central Asian languages such as Uzbek and Kazakh as well as some Siberian languages.

But there’s an even more interesting connection:

The link between Turkish, Japanese and Korean.

There is a hypothetical language group called “Altaic languages“. It includes Turkic languages (e. g. Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh etc.), Mongolic languages and Tungusic languages (spoken in Siberia).

But interestingly, some theories also include Japanese and Korean! Although this hypothesis is very controversial and has even been disproved by a number of linguists, it’s still a topic of ongoing research.

But ne thing is clear: Japanese, Korean and Turkish share a lot of similarities that set them apart from other languages:

They’re agglutinative languages, which means that meaning is created by suffixes and not by words
Japanese and Turkish both have a vocal harmony
They have a subject-object-word order

Many Turkish speakers report that it’s easy for them to learn Japanese or Korean or vice versa.

So, if you’ve always wanted to learn an exotic language without learning a new script, Turkish is the perfect choice!

2. Train Your Brain

That being said, learning Turkish is truly a challenge for your brain. You can’t rely on anything you know from other languages – you basically need to forget everything you know and learn to speak from scratch.

Let’s talk about some features that set Turkish apart from other languages.

Right-To-Left Thinking

Turkish word order works more or less like this: You take an English sentence, and then read it from back to front. Voilà!

Of course, that’s not 100 % true, but it already gives you a rough picture. Let’s look at some examples:

English: I go to Turkey.
Turkish: (Ben) Türkiye’ye gidiyorum.
Back to English: (I) Turkey to go.

English: I want to speak Turkish.
Turkish: (Ben) Türkçe konuşmak istiyorum.
Back to English: (I) Turkish [to] speak want.

There’s No Word For “No” and “To Have”

Turkish is an agglutinative language: That means that meaning is not created by words, but by suffixes. For instance, there’s no word for “to have” or “no”, and most of the times, the word “to be” is also expressed by adding suffixes.

Let me show you how it works:

To have

The word “to have” or “not to have” is expressed by adding an suffix to a noun, according to the personal pronoun it refers to.

I = Ben
You = Sen
Cat = Kedi
My cat = Kedim
Your cat = Kedin
I have a cat = Kedim var.
I don’t have a cat = Kedim yok.
You have a cat = Kedin var.
You don’t have a cat = Kedin yok.

To be

Actually, there is the verb “olmak”, which means “to be”. However, the verb “to be” is mostly expressed by adding suffixes to a word, like this:

I = Ben
Student = öğrenci
I am a student = Ben öğrenciyim
You are a student = Sen öğrencisin

If you want to negate a sentence, you add “-m” to a certain part of the verb. Like that:

I speak Turkish = Türkçe konuşuyorum
I don’t speak Turkish = Türkçe konuşmuyorum.

Learning Turkish is like solving a puzzle – and actually, it’s also a great training to keep your brain fit!

And you know what’s also great? If you start with zero, the learning curve can only be steep! And I can promise you that there’s nothing more rewarding than suddenly speaking a language that was seemed like an unsolvable mystery before!

3. Get Ready For The Next Hype of TV Shows

Did you know that Türkiye has a huge TV industry? Although Turkish TV shows only gained international popularity around 20 years ago, they already surpassed Latin American telenovelas. And since Netflix recognized this potential and began acquiring Turkish shows, their international popularity is exploding! Give it some more time and you will see Turkish series everywhere!

Turkish Series for Language Learning

Netflix series can be a great way to learn a new language. Why not give it a try and use them to learn Turkish? Netflix offers a huge variety of different genres, and they’re all available with Turkish or English subtitles!

Check out these series:

Biz kimden kaçtık anne?: A thriller about a mysterious mother and a daughter fleeing from hotel to hotel, escaping from their past
Zeytin Ağacı: A drama about three girls going on a trip to the coast of Turkey where they discover their past traumas
Atiye: A mystery thriller about a young woman that’s lead to an archeological site where she discovers the connection to her ancestors and her past

4. Use It In Germany Or In The Balkans

Although there are over 1,5 million Turks in Germany, I wasn’t aware how present Turkish is there until I began learning it. Though I initially started learning Turkish for a trip to Turkey in 2022, I later discovered how useful it is also outside of Turkey.

I love hearing snippets of conversations here and there, understand labels of products in Turkish supermarkets or understand slang words that I didn’t even know were Turkish.

But Turkish is not only present in Germany. As the Ottomans ruled over a huge part of Europe for over 500 years, there’s also quite a big Turkish influence in the Balkans. Serbian, for example, has a lot of Turkish loan words such as:

Soup: Čorba (çorba)
Rice: Pirinač (pirinç)
Rent: Kirija (kira)

There is also a huge Turkish part of the population in North Macedonia, Bulgaria or Kosovo. So, if you’re travelling to these countries, it won’t take long until you can use your Turkish skills!

5. Use It In Turkey - Because Only 20 % of Turks Speak English

Do you know this situation? You’re in another country, you’ve learned a language, you’re about to use it – but people switch to English. I feel you – that happened to me all the time in Serbia.

When travelling to Turkey, however, it happened a lot less. Only 15-20 % of Turkish people report to speak English. Hence, knowing some Turkish gives you not only a huge advantage in Turkey – but also a lot of opportunities to practice your speaking skills as people won’t be as likely to switch to English when you start struggling.

When I went to Turkey in 2022, my speaking skills were still pretty weak. But that didn’t matter, because, in some cases, they were higher than the English skills of others. And sometimes, that’s really all your need: Speak a language just a little better than natives speak English!